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Greetings fellow gamers! I wanted to let you know I did a full review of Volo's Guide to Monsters on the latest episode of my RPG podcast, Game Master's Journey. Hopefully this review will help you make an informed decision if you're considering buying this supplement. What did you think of...

Absolutely. If a spell has material components, you need a component pouch or focus to cast it. If it has material components with a gold price, then you need that specific component. It's part of the balance of the game, especially priced components. Without them spells like raise dead and...

The assumption in fifth edition is that you're playing without miniatures, not with them (see the PHB and DMG), so I don't think that explanation holds water. Even running published content, the DM still has to think critically. Mistakes like these occur in published products all the time...

UPDATE: Michael Schmidt wrote this blog post in which he supplies some more hooks for the adventure. These hooks are far superior to the ones give in the book, and you definitely want to check them out if you're going to run this campaign.

Just because the writers don't know the specific PCs doesn't mean it's ok for them to phone in the hooks. You don't need to know specific PCs to come up with evocative hooks. At the very least, decent hooks serve as an example for new or inexperienced GMs. The hooks in this adventure serve...

Well, a prepared DM figures out the treasure before a session, not during it. If the hobgoblin warleader has a potion of superior healing, he might just want to drink it while fighting the PCs, so the DM had better know he has it! Whether a published adventure spells out treasure for you or...

I'm not planning on it, no. I think the review speaks for itself quite well.

I've noticed that a lot of reviewers online really phone in their reviews, often giving you little more than a lengthy description of the table of contents. I spent a lot of time on this review of Storm King's Thunder. Within the blog post you can also find links to a couple podcast episodes I...

Thanks! I really appreciate that. You'll recognize some of the players. :)

We just began Storm King's Thunder! Here is the first video of our first session. This first video includes session zero stuff like character introductions, establishing of ties between characters, and descriptions of the characters' beginning magic items. We then go on and begin the adventure...

Ironically, I think this adventure may be most useful and satisfying to DMs who don't plan on running it. If you're the kind of DM to mine an adventure for ideas, NPCs, locations, maps, magic items, encounters, etc., then I think you'll be very happy with this book. There are a lot of gems in it...

This week I give my full review of Storm King's Thunder. What surprised me about this book is how useful it is for DM's not planning to run the campaign. I gleaned a lot from it's pages that I can use in my own adventures set in my own homebrew world. For more thoughts on Storm King's Thunder...

In this week's episode of my RPG podcast, Game Master's Journey, I discuss some of the cool innovations and tips and tricks I've gleaned from my first perusal of Storm King's Thunder. I really like how they handle treasure and magic items in the book. I think players playing Special NPCs has a...

I don't want to mess with maneuverability or flight ceilings, limitations, etc. That's way too noodly and complicated, and we don't see that elsewhere in the system. I'll either give the species flight, or I won't. I'm not going to give them flight, and then add a bunch of limitations and...

I was looking at a fly speed of 50 and a walk speed of 25, which is identical to the aarokocra PC race in the Elemental Evil players companion. Pixies have a fly speed of 30, and Sprites have a fly speed of 40, and they're both tiny creatures, so I think a 50 fly speed for a small creature is...

I've been working on a fae PC race for my homebrew world of Primordia. They are small creatures. Thematically, I think it would be cool if they could fly, but I feel like that may be a bad idea. I think there are some solid objections to giving flight as a racial ability. 1. Otherwise flight...

It's the introduction to a campaign that should last 10 levels. It's not a stand-alone TPK one-shot.

Death House is the introductory adventure for the new Curse of Strahd campaign. The linked article contains spoilers for that adventure, so don't read it if you may be a player of the adventure. The unwary DM who runs this adventure as written will have a TPK on her hands at least once, if not...

I'm talking about the system as written, not house rules. Awarding roleplaying xp is an alternate rule/house rule. Also, the level 1 discussion is an example, and as I stated, the disparity grows larger with each level. Maybe you can power through 6 or more encounters in 4 hours, but by the...

It will take 6 encounters minimum to get from level 1 to 2. If you can do 6 encounters in a four hour session, my hat is off to you.